The Ornamental Gardens and Boating Lake was opened on the 23rd July 1926 by the Mayor and Mayoress and the ceremony was watched by a crowd of about 2000 people. The estimated cost of the whole scheme was £12,700 and it took approximately 25 weeks to construct. The Lake was filled with salt water from the Corporation's sea water system, fed from the mains on Marine Parade. The original paddle-boats were supplied by W.G. Austrin of Gorleston.

It took a long time for the penny to drop but one of my neices who lives at Stalham married R. Austrin. When I contacted her I found out that it was one of his relatives who had a boat builders place in or near Gorleston,in fact nearly all his relatives were connected with the sea i.e. lifeboat men. It was one of his family who built the orginal paddle-boats

I have recently visited Great Yarmouth and took a walk down to the Boating pool. I was saddened to see how it is today, It is such a shame and I am very very interested in getting it all up and running again. I would be pleased of any suggestions and idea's and a point in the right direction.

I worked here for a few seasons when I was 14 years old, that would have been around 1979 till 1982. John South owned it then and although the work was hard and long hours 10 till 10 it was great. It used to be really busy during the peak season and should we have had strong winds, people would have got out the boats along the wall making us have to row out and get them. It was a really lovely place

My dad was John South, and he put his heart and soul into the cafe and gardens for 20 years from 1967 to 1987 when he died. I went to the coffee house for lunch 2 weeks ago...this was the middle of July on sunny day. There were just three dried up Eccles cakes on the counter and my friend and I were the only customers. The gardens were just knee high in weeds. So different to when my dad ran the place, the cafe was full of happy customers, and the gardens were planted with thousands of bedding plants. It has been left to ruins in the last 25 years, my dad would turn in his grave if he saw it now. Such a shame.